Stan Lee Passes at 95

Nov 13, 2018 | 5:30 AM

The legendary writer, publisher and creator of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, has died at age 95. Born in 1922, he got his first job in 1939 as a gofer making $8 a week at Marvel predecessor Timely Comics. While there, he wrote a two-page story, “The Traitor’s Revenge!” that was used for filler in Timely’s Captain America No. 3 comic. From there, he worked his way up the ladder, until teaming up with another fellow colleague.

The prolific artist and businessman started Marvel with Jack Kirby in 1961, and created or co-created lack Panther, Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Mighty Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil and Ant-Man, among countless other characters. Lee died early Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, a family representative told The Hollywood Reporter.

His comic-book creations helped push the boundaries of censorship in comics, and took great strides in decimating stereotypical portrayals of women and people from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Lee made cameo appearances in all Marvel movies.

TUMULTUOUS YEARS

While Lee essentially founded Marvel, as it grew, his relationship with the company became increasingly fraught. In 2002, he sued Marvel for royalties he said he was owed for Spider-Man. He settled for $10 million. In 2009, The Walt Disney Co. bought Marvel for $4 billion.

Soon after Joan, his wife of 69 years, died in July of 2017, he sued executives at POW! Entertainment, a company he founded in 2001 to develop film and video projects, for $1 billion alleging fraud. Many observers began worrying that Lee was suffering from some sort of mental decline, and whispers about his close circle of advisors began swirling in Hollywood.

Lee dropped the suit against POW! weeks after filing it, but the legal trouble continued. He sued an ex-business manager and filed a restraining order against a man who had been helping to manage his business schedule.

In June of this year, a series of blistering exposes in The Hollywood Reporter and elsewhere reported that the LAPD was investigating claims he was being abused and / or manipulated by business associates.

Lee is survived by his daughter J.C. and a younger brother named Larry Lieber, who worked as a writer and artist for Marvel. J.C. tells TMZ, “My father loved all of his fans. He was the greatest, most decent man.”

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